Haslam drops in for white-glove check at Corning Elementary

January 18, 2013 - Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and his wife Crissy visited Corning Elementary School Thursday where they stopped and read to these first graders on part of their school tour. (Mike Maple/The Commercial Appeal)

Gov. Bill Haslam and wife, Crissy, got the insiders' tour at Corning Elementary Thursday from a fifth-grader who deftly maneuvered them in and out classrooms and through a throng of reporters, all while keeping up a breezy back-and-forth that sounded something like this:

"You have fun? It's fun to be in school when your friends are already home? Wouldn't you rather be with them?"

"They have hands-on activities for you do to," Tavonté answered nonchalantly. "Besides, there's a chance they might get in trouble. I won't because I'm still here."

If Haslam needed a face to attach to the Achievement School District, he got it in Tavonté, the Frayser boy who looked Haslam in the eye, fell in step beside him and seemed happy as punch to be telling the captain how smoothly the ship is sailing.

Last year, Corning was part of Memphis City Schools. This year, it's one of three Frayser schools the state is running in the ASD. The hypothesis is that effective teaching and quality leadership will bring the bow around on the chronically poor performing bottom 5 percent.

Five months into the experiment, Haslam is itching for results, signs that the millions he's invested in the ASD will not only pay dividends but that the achievement district will be the prototype for transforming Tennessee's poor standing among the nation's public school systems.

"What we are doing in the ASD I think is actually precedent-setting for the whole country," Haslam said. "We are looking at different ways to pay teachers. We are looking at different ways to give principals more accountability in the building. And if we can do that, it matters not just for the other 95 percent of schools in the state, but really I think if we can prove that we are helping students learn, that will have impact all across the country.

The ASD's success matters "personally as much as anything we are doing in the administration," Haslam said.

It shows in the leadership's pay. ASD Supt. Chris Barbic earns $215,000 a year, topping the $178,356 Haslam would earn if he accepted a paycheck and the $208,284 state Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman makes.

Part of the risk is choosing the right charter schools to carry the load. Before he showed up on the Corning campus Thursday, Haslam was talking Tennessee charter politics with several charter candidates, all gauging the potential here.

By the fall of 2014, ASD leaders expect to have 35 schools in the portfolio; roughly two-thirds of them run by charters. Next fall, for instance, the ASD will add six more Memphis City schools. Two will be run by the state in Frayser. The remaining will be managed by charters, homegrown KIPP Memphis, Gestalt Community Schools and Cornerstone Preparatory Academy, plus Aspire Public Schools from California.

The road has been rocky for Cornerstone, which is running Pre-K through third grade this year at Lester School in Binghamton and scheduled to take over three more grades in the fall.

Six parents have alleged child abuse, including that their children were not allowed to use the restrooms or had their shoes taken as punishment.

Because the ASD and charters do not have publicly elected school boards, parents say they have little recourse beyond withdrawing their children.

Haslam is aware of the issue. "One of things we have tried to do very hard in the Achievement School District is to be very engaged in the community. That is our job to be out listening and then to take that feedback back," he said.

" … What we have to make certain is that we have venues to make sure a community's feedback is getting heard. At the end of the day, everybody probably won't like every decision, but that's the way it works in every school and in every institution, for that matter."